detroitdoesntsuckthatbad:BafflerMeal: GrailOfThunder: Great story, but "24" did this years ago.. (sans the Superbowl tickets).

Before that, Kid in the Hall:

Before that, Ghostbusters

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080910170453AAG3N84

Bellini!!! I want to poke Bellini!

That's a blast from the past I didn't expect today.

/50 Helens agree- thanks

Me an my roommates at the time nearly killed ourselves trying to get to the phone once we realized what was going on. Sadly, while this phone number was not the kind of evil that wouldn't help an old lady across the street... IT WAS EVIL NONE THE LESS!

Pretty clever advertising. Not sure what I'd do with Super Bowl tickets though. Sell then on eBay I guess, I can think of a million things I'd rather do than go to a football game full of crowds of noisy people.

Mostly historical reasons. Back when phones were literally wired together by people sitting in front of huge panels of wires and sockets, 10,000 numbers was a practical limit of the technology (A 100x100 switchboard) so numbers tended to be 4 digits.

When that wasn't enough, a three digit prefix to identify the station/region was added.

Eventually that wasn't enough, so they added an area code as well.=Smidge=

Mostly historical reasons. Back when phones were literally wired together by people sitting in front of huge panels of wires and sockets, 10,000 numbers was a practical limit of the technology (A 100x100 switchboard) so numbers tended to be 4 digits.

When that wasn't enough, a three digit prefix to identify the station/region was added.

Eventually that wasn't enough, so they added an area code as well.=Smidge=

can you explain why old area codes always had a zero or one as the second digit?

Mikey1969:Flt209er: In addition to the tickets, Knowlton will get ...$2,500 to offset taxes

This is honestly the most badass part of the story. He'll probably still owe something, but it wouldn't surprise me they calculated it pretty close and his final tax bill comes out to be ~$20.

Except that he'll get taxed on the $2,500 as well. I still think it's cool, though. I should really stop ignoring things like this, it sounds...

Oh, absolutely. But tax on the $2.5K will just get withheld from the $2.5K; it won't require him to cut a check to the IRS for money he might not have. Hopefully the remainder will cover the tax on the non-cash parts of the prize; but even if it doesn't he's still getting a a trip to the superbowl cheap.

Mostly historical reasons. Back when phones were literally wired together by people sitting in front of huge panels of wires and sockets, 10,000 numbers was a practical limit of the technology (A 100x100 switchboard) so numbers tended to be 4 digits.

When that wasn't enough, a three digit prefix to identify the station/region was added.

Eventually that wasn't enough, so they added an area code as well.=Smidge=

can you explain why old area codes always had a zero or one as the second digit?

/leading question

So the set of all area codes and the set of all exchanges would be mutually exclusive?

Mostly historical reasons. Back when phones were literally wired together by people sitting in front of huge panels of wires and sockets, 10,000 numbers was a practical limit of the technology (A 100x100 switchboard) so numbers tended to be 4 digits.

When that wasn't enough, a three digit prefix to identify the station/region was added.

Eventually that wasn't enough, so they added an area code as well.=Smidge=

can you explain why old area codes always had a zero or one as the second digit?

/leading question

I'd guess it's a relic of the rotary phone, 1 being the shortest dial and 0 the longest. Though not sure what this would accomplish beyond making some codes faster to dial.

Mostly historical reasons. Back when phones were literally wired together by people sitting in front of huge panels of wires and sockets, 10,000 numbers was a practical limit of the technology (A 100x100 switchboard) so numbers tended to be 4 digits.

When that wasn't enough, a three digit prefix to identify the station/region was added.

Eventually that wasn't enough, so they added an area code as well.=Smidge=

can you explain why old area codes always had a zero or one as the second digit?